18 posts categorized "Summer Olympics"

September 09, 2010

To paraphrase a famous utterance, the financial agreement announced Thursday between the U.S. Olympic Committee and the International is a small step in settling account ledgers and a giant leap in getting past the idea that this was more about settling accounts than reaching a reasonable solution.

The differences between the USOC and the IOC on financial issues had become so great and divisive over the past few years it seemed one side was from Mars, the other from Venus and both had chosen to emulate Ralph Kramden's threat when he got fed up with his wife, Alice, on the old ``Honeymooners'' sitcom:

``To the Moon, Alice.''

The result of all the squabbling over games costs, the issue more easily taken out of play, and revenue sharing, which will remain much harder to solve, gave those of us who cover the Olympics some wonderfully vitriolic outbursts to report.

All that noise also gave Chicago's failed 2016 Summer Games bid a headache for which there was no medicine. While it was not the prime reason Chicago lost to Rio, which was destined to win, it gave the IOC voters an easy excuse to humiliate the United States by eliminating a good Chicago bid in the first round a year ago.

So where does it all stand now, and how did the parties get there?

The war of words ended with the departure of Hein Verbruggen from the IOC and Peter Ueberroth as chairman of the USOC.

It took nearly another year for the USOC to overcome its internecine feud, which began when board member Stephanie Streeter engineered the ouster of USOC chief executive Jim Scherr. When Streeter, haplessly unfamiliar with the peculiarities of Olympic administration, took Scherr's job on an acting basis, the USOC's constituents were so furious they tried to oust not only her but Ueberroth's successor as chairman, Larry Probst, who had been looking at his post as a very part-time thing.

Streeter was forced out soon after the Chicago bid demise. Probst, both combative and chastened in reaction to the criticism, vowed to do the USOC work on a full-time basis and is keeping his word. The USOC board then showed uncommon good sense in hiring Scott Blackmun as CEO, knowing his past involvement with the USOC would make Blackmun's learning curve a flat line.

Probst, not a natural schmoozer, set about traveling the globe to build and rebuild relationships with the IOC. Blackmun, an attorney, set about thinking through ways to handle the legal and financial problems making those relations difficult.

Throughout the years of bitter negotiations, IOC member Gerhard Heiberg of Norway had remained a font of Nordic reasonableness. Christophe de Kepper, the Belgian who has been Jacques Rogge's chief of staff since his countryman became IOC president in 2001, also worked to calm the waters.

The games cost issue, which involves each national Olympic committee's share of expenses related to things like doping control and sports' officials travel and lodging during an Olympics, involved relatively simple math. The USOC asked if, say, $18 million would erase the debt. The IOC said okay. A check for that amount (I have confirmed that the $18 million number first reported by the Associated Press is in the ballpark) will be in the mail very soon.

The revenue sharing issue involves much bigger numbers, contracts in place (some until 2020) and hot-button emotions.

In deals begun more than a quarter-century ago and revised in the 1990s, the USOC receives 20 percent of the revenue from the IOC's global sponsorship program and 12.75 percent of the U.S. television rights fees.

The original rationales for those contracts? 1) U.S.-based multinationals and U.S. TV rights were providing the lion's share of IOC revenues in both areas. 2) By agreeing to be part of the IOC global sponsorship program, the USOC had lost the ability to sell sponsorships in categories the IOC sold (soft drinks, computers, etc.). Since the USOC is the only Olympic committee with no government funding, it needed a share of those IOC revenues to run its operations and fund strong Olympic teams. About half the USOC quadrennial budget -- more than $200 million --comes from the shares of TV and global sponsorship.

About 2006, a groundswell of international opposition to those deals began to build, much based on one easy argument: the USOC's dollar share of IOC revenues is greater than that given to the other 200-plus national Olympic committees combined. When non-U.S. companies became a majority of the global sponsors in recent years, that made the U.S. share seem even more galling. (U.S. companies are a majority again.) Some IOC members wanted the USOC to demand government funding.

Ueberroth became angry over the IOC leadership's refusal to accept revised revenue-sharing deals he thought had been brokered. He would be so infuriated by some IOC members' criticism of the USOC in 2007 and 2008 that his final public speech as USOC chairman essentially was a defiant refusal to concede a penny.

Both sides have stepped away from their hard-line positions in the past eight months. Make that tiptoed away, so quiet have the negotiations been, with nothing more than anodyne statements about fruitful discussions and the like. (There must be a whole orchard by now.)

The announcement of the agreement on games costs arrived in routine emails from the IOC and USOC.

Here is the content of the USOC email:

The following is a joint statement from the IOC and the U.S. Olympic Committee

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) have reached agreement on a significant financial contribution from the USOC to resolve the Games' costs issue.

During a very productive and amicable meeting at the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore last month, the two sides also agreed to establish a process to accelerate talks on the outstanding issue of revenue sharing.

The agreement followed fruitful discussions in Denver, Colorado, last year and at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games this February. The IOC and USOC delegations have pledged to continue working in a constructive manner and in a spirit of good faith and cooperation.

The following statement is (from) USOC Chairman Larry Probst

I am pleased that our relationship has progressed to the point where we can begin to make significant headway on a number of issues that have been a point of contention between the USOC and the IOC. This agreement demonstrates that when people work together constructively to develop innovative solutions to challenging problems, the future of the Olympic Movement will benefit.

The following statement is (from) USOC CEO Scott Blackmun

I am very pleased that we can put the issue of Games' costs behind us for the time being so that we can pursue a broader discussion. That discussion will be difficult and complicated, but we will be aided by the fact that we can have a constructive dialogue, and that would not have been possible just a few months ago.

As Blackmun's statement notes, constructive dialogue would have been impossible until recently. As Probst said, the relationship between the two sides has progressed.

Peace in our time? Or maybe just a piece of the pie so small it no longer worth was fighting over.

In either case, the games costs resolution was reached well before expected, which allows negotiations over the big piece to begin three years earlier than the starting date agreed upon a year ago.

My colleague Alan Abrahamson, who was at the Youth Olympic Games, wrote today that you could see a new spirit in the IOC-USOC relationship with the help of the spirits at the Ritz Carlton bar in Singapore.

It's still too early to uncork the Dom Perignon.

But now that cooler heads have prevailed, a cold one would taste pretty good. As soon as he gets the $18 mil, Jacques Rogge can buy. After all, Belgium has the best beer in the world.

September 08, 2010

1. I hope I'm wrong, but my gut feeling is 2010 Olympic figure skating singles champions Kim Yuna of South Korea and Evan Lysacek of the United States are done with competitive skating.

2. Both Kim, 20, and Lysacek, 25, always will be remembered for having given a career-defining performance to win the gold medal. Not a bad way to go out, if that's what either decides.

3. Helene Elliott's column about Michelle Kwan in Wednesday's Los Angeles Times reinforced my conviction that while Kwan never won an Olympic gold medal, she rapidly is becoming one of the greatest Olympians ever -- a person of so many more dimensions than she showed us in her extraordinary skating career.

4. The U.S. Olympic Committee should step in if USA Track & Field's board decides to dump CEO Doug Logan after this weekend's meeting in Las Vegas. Logan deserves to get through at least the 2012 Olympics. Blaming him for a poor showing in Beijing two years ago is ridiculous. The guy was on the job about 12 minutes before the 2008 Summer Games.

5. Ice Wars: Kim Yuna (Pyeongchang) vs. Katarina Witt (Munich). The two Olympic champions are big names on their country's bid team rosters in the effort to bring home the 2018 Winter Games. The winner of the International Olympic Committee's vote next year? Kim and South Korea.

6. U.S. sprinter Tyson Gay has laid down some serious heat since his disappointing, injury-ridled 2008 Olympic season. He had the No. 2-3-4 fastest 100-meter times of 2009 (behind you-know-who from Jamaica). This season, Gay ended Usain Bolt's 2-year win streak, went undefeated and had the No. 1 and No. 3 times in the world. I'm picking Gay -- barring another injury to upset Bolt for the 2011 world title.

7. The Feds may be involved this time, but somehow, some way, Lance Armstrong will skate with his reputation intact from the latest investigation into his alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs -- spurred by Floyd Landis' claims he knew Armstrong was on the juice.

8. Are the first Youth Olympic Games over yet?

9. The next realistic chance for a Summer OIympics in the United States is 2028. But why do I keep thinking there will be an opportunity for a U.S. bidder in 2020 if Pyeongchang gives Asia an Olympics in 2018, and Paris decides to go after the 2024 Summer Games to celebrate the centenary of its last time as Olympic host?

10. Chicago should bid for the 2018 World Basketball Championships. The next worlds, in 2014, were awarded to Spain at a meeting last year in. . .Chicago.

The rules of the game -- in this case, the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships -- kept Naperville product Mary DeScenza Mohler from the 200 butterfly final Wednesday night.

Mohler, U.S. record-holder at the distance, went on to win the consolation final.

When I spoke with her a month ago for this story, Mohler was uncertain about her future as a competitive swimmer, having been married in 2009 and moved to Japan to be with her husband, a Marine lieutenant. She had barely missed making the Olympics in 2004 and 2008.

Mohler talked more about the subject after Wednesday's preliminaries. This is what my Tribune Co. colleague Lisa Dillman wrote about it:

Swimming supremacy, American style, did not exactly benefit Aaron Peirsol and Mary DeScenza Mohler on Wednesday in the morning heats at the Pan Pacific Championships in Irvine.

Peirsol and Mohler appeared to be victims of the meet's format, in
which just two swimmers from a country can move on to the finals at
night. Time, for once, wasn't the determining factor.

But Peirsol, who was the third-fastest American in the 100-meter backstroke behind David Plummer and Ryan Lochte,
ended up getting a second chance when Lochte decided to scratch for the
night final, opting to concentrate on the 200 freestyle.

Mohler, however, didn't get such a reprieve. She was the third-fastest American in the 200 butterfly, behind teammates Teresa Crippen and Kathleen Hersey.

The affable Mohler was reflective in the mixed zone afterward,
contemplating her future in the sport. Talk turned to balancing swimming
and starting a family, and Mohler sounded as though those discussions
would be taking place shortly with her husband, Charlie. They have been living in Okinawa, Japan, where he has been based with the Marines, though he is set to deploy shortly.

One reporter reminded Mohler that Amanda Beard was handling the balancing act quite nicely, dealing with motherhood and swimming.

"I'm sure having a baby is a lot harder than doing a 200 fly," Mohler said, smiling.

She spoke about the decision-making process and joked, "It's not a dictatorship."

No matter what happens with her future, she said she will not have any regrets.

Short-term will be the chance to see her husband after seven weeks apart. "I feel like I've been deployed," Mohler said.

January 04, 2010

I have posted this to Globetrotting for those of you who may have missed it on the Tribune and Los Angeles Times web sites because you were busy during the holidays, And, in an addition to the version of this story that appeared on the web sites, I am naming my athletes of the decade. You’ll find them at the end of my annual awards.

(Victory slide: Sweden's Anja Paerson after winning gold at 2006 Olympics, one of many triumphs that brought her special recognition in these awards. Scott Strazzante / Chicago Tribune.)

By Philip Hersh

The year after a Summer Olympics is supposed to be a time when the stars of the previous Games catch their breath while the likely stars of the next Winter Games give the Olympic world some breathless anticipation.

So it was no surprise to see alpine skier Lindsey Vonn emerge as, so to speak, the Michael Phelps of the upcoming 2010 Winter Games, a woman clearly capable of winning four of her sport’s five events.

But we also saw Phelps being Phelps all over again, saving a sport whose brain-dead leadership allowed decades of history to be washed away by its failure to rein in technology.

And Usain Bolt becoming lightning-in-a-bottle for track and field’s leadership, a star of such dimensions he is keeping afloat a sport drowning in its recent doping history.

As they had been in 2008, Bolt and Phelps were the biggest winners of 2009 in the Olympic sports world.

The biggest loser?Chicago, its excellent bid for the 2016 Olympics shamed by a first-round elimination.For that, Chicago can thank the U.S. Olympic Committee’s dunderhead leadership, given the USOC’s determined efforts to create more internal turmoil and infuriate the International Olympic Committee.

Not that anyone was going to deny Rio de Janeiro its historic prize: becoming the first South American host of an Olympics.

That is why I am giving Brazil’s president one of the top prizes in these 23rd annual Tribune international sports awards, for people to whom an Olympic gold medal – or, in this case, an Olympic Games -- is the ultimate goal.

World Athletes of the Year

MEN

GOLD – Usain Bolt, Jamaica, track and field.Last year, I couldn’t pick between Bolt and Michael Phelps, so they shared this award.In 2009, Bolt was not only in another class from any athlete in any sport but from any human being who has taken on the simplest of all athletic challenges: getting from here to there faster than the competition.With his second set of 100-200 world records at a major meet (Olympics 2008, worlds 2009), plus another sprint relay victory, Bolt is a runaway winner.

SILVER – Michael Phelps, United States, swimming.It isn’t just that Phelps won five more world championship gold medals, giving him an astounding 20 golds for the four worlds in which he has competed.It is his having defied the anything-goes suit insanity that rendered swim world records essentially meaningless: Phelps set world marks in the 100 and 200 butterfly without the all-polyurethane super suits.

BRONZE – Aksel Lund Svindal, Norway, alpine skiing.After missing a season because of a horrific late 2007 crash at Beaver Creek, Colo., Svindal returned to win the World Cup overall and Super-G titles and the world title in super combined in 2009.

WOMEN

GOLD – Lindsey Vonn, United States, alpine skiing.Imagine what Vonn might have done if she hadn’t slashed a thumb opening a champagne bottle to celebrate her second gold medal (downhill, Super-G) at the 2009 worlds?As it was, she won 9 World Cup races, a second straight World Cup overall title, two World Cup discipline titles and utterly dominated her sport.

SILVER – Guo Jingjing, China, diving. The word had been that Guo, who turned 28 last October, would retire after the 2008 Olympics, where she won two more golds (after two in Athens). But there she was at the 2009 worlds, winning two titles (including an unprecedented 5th straight in a single event, 3-meter springboard), the 9th and 10th world titles of her career.Now she talks of competing at the 2012 London Games.

BRONZE – Federica Pellegrini, Italy, swimming. In a year when she posed nude for the cover of the Italian edition of Vanity Fair, then undressed the competition at the Rome worlds, it was hard to recall this 21-year-old once suffered from panic attacks about competition.She won the 200 and 400 freestyles at worlds to justify the gold paint covering her body in the magazine pictures.

U.S. Athletes of the Year

MEN

GOLD – Michael Phelps, swimming. (see above).

SILVER – Todd Lodwick, Nordic combined.After two frustrating Olympics, in which he had top ten finishes in all six of his events but could not become the first U.S. athlete to win a Nordic combined medal, Lodwick retired in 2006, 11 years after making his World Cup debut.The father of two returned last season at age 33 to win not only the first world title of his exceptional career but a second one two days later.

BRONZE – Evan Lysacek, figure skating. Making 4 ½ minutes of jumping, spinning and footwork sequences look effortless, the 23-year-old became the first U.S. man to win the world title since Todd Eldredge in 1996.

WOMEN

GOLD – Lindsey Vonn (see above)

SILVER– Erin Hamlin, luge.Yes, she had home-track advantage in Lake Placid, but no woman from any country had won there or anywhere over the German wundermadchen in 99 Olympic, World Cup and World Championship races dating to 1997 -- until Hamlin took the gold medal at the 2009 worlds.

BRONZE – Allyson Felix and Sanya Richards, track and field. Felix won her third straight world title at 200 meters; Richards finally got the major meet gorilla off her back by winning her first individual title, at 400 meters.Then they teamed up for a second straight world gold in the 4 x 400 meters.

World Performances of the Year

MEN

GOLD – Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil.The Brazilian president’s appeal to the International Olympic Committee during final presentations before the 2016 Olympic vote was a brilliant mix of emotion and pragmatism.One telling example: after weeks of telling the IOC to stop giving the Olympics only to rich countries, President Lula reminded everyone that Brazil was the only country among the world’s top 10 economies that had yet to be an Olympic host.That ended when the IOC made Rio the 2016 winner.

BRONZE – Kenenisa Bekele, Ethiopia, track and field.Running in Bolt’s shadow, Bekele became the first man to win the 5,000 and 10,000 meters at a world championships.``I would definitely beat him (Bolt) at this distance,’’ Bekele joked after the 5,000.

WOMEN

GOLD – Caster Semenya, South Africa, track and field. Her stunning win in the 800 meters at the world meet, in a time more than 8 seconds better than her personal best a year earlier, touched off a controversy over what constitutes sexual identity and fair competition that has yet to be resolved.Rivals railed that Semenya, 18, was a man; tests have reportedly shown her to be intersex.Semenya will keep her gold medal, but her competitive future has yet to be decided.

SILVER– Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli, cycling, France.Longo, a 1996 Olympic champion, won her 56th national cycling title last summer – at age 50.She also finished 10th in the time trial at worlds five weeks before her 51st birthday.

BRONZE– Kim Yuna, South Korea, figure skating.Before a large contingent of compatriots in a sellout Los Angeles crowd, Kim not only became the first South Korean to win a world figure skating title but did it with a record score, won by a whopping 16 points despite two significant errors in her free skate and established herself as a prohibitive favorite for 2010 Olympic gold.

WORLD ATHLETES OF THE DECADE

MEN

Michael Phelps, United States, swimming:Utterly no contest here.With a record-breaking 14 Olympic gold medals, 20 world championship gold medals and 29 individual world records(the first in 2001; the most recent in Aug., 2009), Phelps was in a class by himself.

WOMEN

Anja Paerson, Sweden, alpine skiing.Quietly, unassumingly (except for her celebratory belly slides after races), the 28-year-old had a decade of brilliance in every dimension.Three Olympic medals (one of each color); seven world titles (plus two seconds and a third); two World Cup overall titles; five World Cup event titles; and 40 World Cup wins, making her No. 4 all-time in that category.

December 10, 2009

The International Olympic Committee has made another couple ill-advised decisions regarding the program for the Summer Olympic Games.

Thursday, the IOC executive board went along with a recommendation of the International Cycling Union (UCI) to dump what some call track cycling's iconic event, individual pursuit, beginning with the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Meanwhile, the IOC added mixed doubles in tennis, a sport which should not be in the Olympics in the first place.

First, the tennis decision.

Sports in which an Olympic gold medal is not the ultimate prize have no real business in the Olympics. I would make a couple exceptions: men's basketball, because its presence in the Summer Games has played a dramatic role in expanding and improving the game worldwide; and men's hockey, because the Olympic tournament still means a great deal to countries like Canada, Russia, Sweden and Finland, and the Winter Games program is not overstuffed like that of the Summer Games.

Tennis does not need the Olympics, nor does the Olympics need tennis. The sport gets plenty of worldwide exposure from its Grand Slams, and the presence of its stars in the Summer Games drains attention from athletes whose only chance for exposure is at the Olympics.

(The same argument holds for golf, added to the program beginning with the 2016 Summer Games. Golf used Tiger Woods as a significant part of its argument for inclusion. Think that would play now?)

The Olympics would be better off without tennis, golf, boxing and men's soccer.

Then there is track cycling, where the argument for dumping men's and women's pursuit had something to do with short attention spans, according to what IOC president Jacques Rogge said at a press conference following the two-day executive board meeting in Lausanne.

Rogge said the executive board only was going along with a UCI recommendation that the track cycling program changes would be ``more appealing and yield more audience. . .There is a general shift from endurance events to sprint events.''

The men's 4000-meter individual pursuit lasts less than a minute more than the 400 meters in men's swimming and the 1,500 meters in track. Extending Rogge's logic, those events (and anything longer) should be eliminated as well.

And, in exact contradiction of the shorter-is-better argument, the IOC has added a cycling event called Omnium, which has six parts (including pursuit) and is compared to decathlon.

Many of the world's leading cyclists, including Lance Armstrong, spoke out against eliminating individual pursuit. They got more than 4,000 signatures on a petition that asked the IOC to keep the event.

Rogge brushed off their concerns by saying, ``You always have to distinguish the big picture from any particular country where some heroes win a lot of medals.''

(One of those heroes was likely to be U.S. cyclist Taylor Phinney. He is the reigning world champion in individual pursuit and, at 19, the sport's rising star whose personality and family story -- son of two Olympic medalist cyclists, whose father is battling Parkinson's disease -- made him a guaranteed attention-getter for track cycling.)

The UCI turned a deaf ear, and so did the IOC, which foolishly thinks these program tweaks are going to attract more interest from the Wii generation.

Yet the IOC lets out-of-fashion sports like equestrian, modern pentathlon and Greco-Roman wrestling remain in the Olympics, then tries to make them more relevant by compressing their competition into a much shorter time period so television might pay more attention.

To most track cyclists (and great road cyclists who also competed on the track), individual pursuit was the truest expression of their discipline.

The people who run international sports always say their first interest is doing right by the athletes.

Once again, their actions have belied their lofty intentions.

(Photo: Taylor Phinney in individual pursuit at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where he took 7th. AP / Ricardo Mazalan)

December 09, 2009

I have been trying to figure out what led Olympic champion Shani Davis last week to call U.S. Speedskating's new benefactor, Stephen Colbert, ``a jerk.''

Was it a reaction to Colbert's recent ``attack'' of Canadians and Canadian speedskaters? Probably a little of that.

Was this just Davis' way of doing anything he can to distance himself from a federation with which he has been at odds for years?

Or, as I suspect, did it have most to do with the way Colbert treated the controversy involving Davis and U.S. teammate Chad Hedrick over team pursuit at the 2006 Olympics?

Even knowing the nature of Colbert's shtick, it is easy to understand how a Feb. 22, 2006 skit (video below) could have offended Davis.

The part where Colbert says, ``Shani Davis should have skated in the team pursuit even though it interfered with his training for the 1,000 meters. . .sometimes you have to put aside your ego and sacrifice individual glory for the sake of the team if you are black'' does not seem entirely tempered by the satirical context the comedian adds in the next minute or so. As a rare black man in his sport -- the first black athlete to win an individual event gold medal in the Winter Olympics -- Davis long has dealt with stereotypes that discouraged other African Americans from competitive speedskating.

I attempted to speak with Davis Monday, but a bad cell phone connection prevented me from doing more than exchange initial pleasantries. He did not respond to subsequent text and voice messages. His publicist, Kori Novak, told me Wednesday that Davis would have no comment.

A spokesperson for Colbert also said he would have no comment.

The back story: Colbert, host of Comedy Central's ``Colbert Report,'' stepped up to help raise funds for U.S. Speedskating after learning the federation was $300,000 in the hole after losing the sponsorship of a primary backer, DSB bank of the Netherlands, when the bank went under. Colbert asked his viewers, the ``Colbert Nation,'' to contribute; according to U.S. Speedskating, some 8,500 have responded to raise about $250,000 so far.

In the process, Colbert took off from news reports about Canada resticting foreign skaters' use of the 2010 Olympic Oval in Vancouver by calling the Canadians ``iceholes'' and ``syrup-suckers.''

That provoked outraged, knee-jerk reaction by some in the Canada media, their brains apparently too frozen by life in the Great White North to realize 1) Colbert was having some fun; and 2) his involvement probably has done more to raise awareness of speedskating in North America than any other event in the sport's history.

Both Davis, a 2006 Olympic gold and silver medalist, and short track Olympic champion Apolo Anton Ohno, the two leading U.S. speedskaters, have chosen not to wear the Colbert logo (a ``C'' on the hood or ``Colbert Nation'' on the thigh) because they want their personal sponsors to get that placement. U.S. Speedskating officials signed off on their decision, and they informed Colbert's people of the situation before he made the sport his cause.

``We're allotted certain spaces on our skinsuit throughout the negotiation process with a sponsor,'' Ohno said in a Monday teleconference about the upcoming Olympics. ``I cannot cover up that sponsor, Alaska Airlines, even if I had wanted to.

``I'm happy that Stephen Colbert has stepped up. It brings a lot of good exposure to our sport and obviously, U.S. Speedskating is in dire need of financial support. I think we're really lucky that someone like that stepped up to help us out.''

Asked about Colbert last week in Calgary, where a World Cup meet took place, Davis was quoted by the Associated Press as saying, ``He's a jerk. You can put that in the paper.''

Ohno said he had read accounts of what Davis said but had yet to talk with him about it.

``It was an interesting comment,'' Ohno said, with a laugh, proving as adept at sidestepping as when he won ``Dancing with the Stars'' in 2007.

Ohno said he ``absolutely'' understood what Colbert said about Canadians was meant as a joke. ``I think he's funny, and this is a time when our country is in need of some humor,'' Ohno said. ``It's also a good cause.''

But it is understandable that Davis might be sensitive to someone dissing Canadians. He feels a special fondness and gratitude to the Canadian speedskating community. Calgary was his training base leading up to the 2006 Olympics, and Canadian officials gave him both rink time and other support at the 1988 Olympic Oval there.

For that reason and the 2006 skit, Davis may have been less inclined to pass off Colbert's Canadian jokes as tongue-in-cheek.

Davis wasn't alone in being uneasy about Colbert's style of humor. Other U.S. skaters didn't know what to expect at first.

``One the one hand, we're Olympic athletes, so when Colbert first began sponsoring us, everyone was like, `Is he going to make fun of us?''' said 2010 short track Olympian Katherine Reutter of Champaign.

``But he has never done anything like. He has really given us a lot of respect for going out there and doing the best that we can.

``At the same time, we do need to realize we skate in tiny circles in spandex suits. It can be humorous at times.

``I think it's a really good fit, and he's a very generous guy for coming in and helping us out. I couldn't be happier about it.''

Davis' ``jerk'' remark, indirectly a slap at the U.S. Speedskating, came at a time when he seemed to be engaged in rapprochement with the federation. After October's trials for the long track World Cup team, Davis agreed to be placed in the pool for team pursuit, and he skated the first World Cup team pursuit event of the year, helping the U.S. team tie the Netherlands for first.

It was as if Davis were trying to put far behind him the negative media coverage that tarnished his memories of an exceptional performance at the 2006 Olympics. And, although members of Team Davis were very upset by parts of my Tribune Magazine profile of him before the 2006 Olympics, he has been both courteous to me and willing to answer my questions at both October's trials and the 2007 World Single Distance Championships.

In 2002, Davis' selection to the Olympic short track team was mired in controversy that, like the team pursuit issue in 2006, was not of his doing. He did not compete in those Salt Lake Winter Games.

The way Davis has skated this season and last, it seems a lock for him to win medals in at least two races, the 1,000 and 1,500, at the 2010 Winter Games, and two golds would not be a surprise.

It would be a shame if he were prevented from enjoying every bit of such an achievement.

(Photo above: Shani Davis waves to fans during his victory lap after winning the 1,000 meters in a track record time at last weekend's World Cup event in Calgary. Jeff McIntosh / AP / The Canadian Press)

May 06, 2009

A few words from the Texas-based nutritional supplement maker, AdvoCare, at the center of the Jessica Hardy case, in the form of this press release contesting the findings of the hearing panel that reduced her doping suspension from two years to one.(For the details of that panel's action, please read my Blog posted yesterday. You will notice it puts the word ``allegedly'' before ``contaminated'' in reference to the AdvoCare supplement central to the case, since the issue of contamination also is central to lawsuits each party -- Hardy and AdvoCare -- has brought against the other. Hardy had been an endorser for AdvoCare, which gave her products in return for her endorsement.)

The AdvoCare statement:

AdvoCare Disputes Findings of Hardy Arbitration PanelOn May 4, 2009, the arbitration panel presiding over Jessica Hardy’s appeal of her suspension reduced Ms. Hardy’s suspension to one year, finding that Ms. Hardy met her burden of proof in showing that an AdvoCare supplement she consumed was contaminated with a slight trace of clenbuterol, a banned substance.The arbitration panel’s finding is in direct conflict with testing conducted by two independent laboratories, both of which found no evidence that clenbuterol was present in the AdvoCare supplements consumed by Ms. Hardy.Every single raw material used in the specific lots consumed by Ms. Hardy also tested negative (Not Detected) for Clenbuterol. NSF International, an independent laboratory licensed to test for controlled substances, certified these test results. The results were also certified by HFL Sports Science, a leader in nutritional supplement testing with a WADA-experienced laboratory that adheres to ISO 17025 standards for sports supplements and has analyzed more samples for banned substances than any other lab in the world.Moreover, the arbitration panel’s finding that Ms. Hardy had met her burden of proof in showing supplement contamination was based solely upon information presented by Ms. Hardy and her legal team. AdvoCare was not permitted to participate in the arbitration proceeding. AdvoCare was not allowed to question witnesses or present any evidence to the arbitration panel. The arbitration panel also denied AdvoCare’s requests to attend the hearing and have the proceedings transcribed by a court reporter.For these reasons, AdvoCare believes that the arbitration was severely flawed and the panel’s finding regarding the purity of AdvoCare’s products is not supported by the facts or evidence. As noted previously, AdvoCare has instituted a lawsuit in the Northern District of Texas against Ms. Hardy in which AdvoCare is seeking a judicial determination that the AdvoCare products consumed by Ms. Hardy did not contain clenbuterol. AdvoCare believes that after consideration of evidence presented by both AdvoCare and Ms. Hardy that it will prevail in the lawsuit.

April 29, 2009

Rashid Ramzi on the way to victory in the 1,500 at the Beijing Olympics. He stands to lose the gold after a positive dope test announced Tuesday. (Associated Press / Greg Baker)

By Philip HershThere is good news for track and field in the announcement of more doping positives from the Beijing Olympics, even if 1,500-meter gold medalist Rashid Ramzi of Bahrain is among those caught.Actually, even because Ramzi -- one of the sport's mercenaries -- was among those caught. More on that.The good news is that no Jamaican or U.S. athletes are among the three from track and field nabbed by retesting of samples for a new incarnation (known as MIRCERA or simply CERA) of the blood booster EPO, according to sources familiar with the results.While it is unlikely that a sprinter like Usain Bolt would have been using a drug favored by endurance athletes, track officials know their sport would officially be proclaimed dead if he had tested positive. And there might have been just as much damage from the guilt by association that would have accompanied another Jamaican positive.Same for USA Track & Field. All its efforts to ovecome the doping scandals that ensnared Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery and more would have been for naught had a U.S. athlete turned up positive in Beijing.So why is it good Ramzi, a native Moroccan, was caught, which the Bahrain Olympic Committee admitted Wednesday?He is among many top North African and Kenyan runners whose services have been bought by rich Gulf States seeking to embellish their sporting image -- and able to take advantage of the easy citizenship procedures in their countries. Maybe this doping positive will be a cautionary tale -- sort of buyer, beware -- for such deals.A spate of middle distance and distance runners born in North Africa, especially Morocco, have been caught for EPO use. Many were citizens of European countries, but they often continued to train in Morocco. The number of these cases casts doubt on the achievements of such great Moroccan runners as Hicham El-Guerrouj, 1,500 and 5,000 winner at the 2004 Olympics, even if he never tested positive for anything. (Neither, as you may recall, did Marion Jones.)The other announced big name from the Beijing retests is Italian cyclist Davide Rebellin, silver medalist in the road race.And, while the positives have yet to be confirmed by testing of the ``B'' samples, it is hardly a surprise that a leading cyclist was dirty. After all, it was discovery of CERA in samples from last year's Tour de France that led the International Olympic Committee to pay for 847 retests targeting that substance.

November 25, 2008

The relationship always seemed incongruous. She was tall, attractive, famous, outgoing, a star in two sports. He was short, shy, given to mumbling in interviews and until the end of his career just another very good athlete on the international track circuit.

When they made the deal public, with Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery sharing a kiss and hug after he set a world record in the 100 meters Sept. 14, 2002 (nine months before Jones gave birth to Tim Montgomery Jr.), you had to wonder what Jones saw in the man known as Tiny Tim, what they could possibly have talked about.

Six years later, when both have spent time in prison and had their track and field achievements either officially erased or rendered meaningless, the differences between them are even more apparent.

None is bigger than this: Montgomery has the courage to tell the truth, while Jones continues to dissemble about her use of performance-enhancing drugs.

That -– not Montgomery’s revelation that he doped before running in the prelims of an eventual gold medal-winning sprint relay at the 2000 Olympics –- is the most dramatic part of the jailhouse interview with Bryant Gumbel that airs Tuesday night on HBO’s Real Sports.

While Montgomery first says that doping guru Victor Conte never told him the substances Conte gave him were steroids, the runner confesses less than a minute later, as Gumbel does a fine job of leading Montgomery to full disclosure.

"I knew," Montgomery said. "I’m not going to lie. I knew."

Gumbel knew where to go with that statement: show a few seconds of Jones' recent interview with Oprah Winfrey, during which Jones, who also had a working relationship with Conte, once again refused to admit she knew was getting performance-enhancing drugs from the Balco boss.

That wasn’t the only way Montgomery now appears to be a bigger person than his ex-companion. Out of respect for their child, Montgomery declined to comment on what Jones had told Oprah.

Montgomery, 33, did a lot more wrong than just take steroids. He got 46 months for his role in a bank fraud scheme about which Jones professed ignorance, a lie federal investigators used to pressure her into admitting some of her doping. When that sentence ends, he will begin serving five more years for selling heroin.

Montgomery did not try to cover anything up in the HBO interview. He admitted to being "very lazy" and used doping as a shortcut because "I wanted my name in the papers and my face on TV." He revealed having broken NCAA rules by signing a $98,000 sponsorship deal while still running for Norfolk State. It was evidence, Montgomery said, that "I had a criminal mind then."

Unlike Jones, who tried to explain away her mistakes by telling Oprah, "I didn’t love myself enough," Montgomery did not hide the motivation for his behavior or rationalize its consequences.

Selling heroin? "(I did it) for the money."

Could he handle nine years in prison: "I made the bed, and I’m going to lie in it."

The question of who gave whom fleas when Montgomery lay down with Jones once seemed easy to answer.

Truth be told, it is Jones who refuses to stop dogging it about telling the truth.

November 21, 2008

ISTANBUL -- In the midst of the global Olympic crisis, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge is surprisingly upbeat about both the financing of the next four Olympic Games and of the IOC itself.

In fact, he sounded like a lead character in Voltaire’s famous satire, "Candide – or Optimism," a man who famously denies a series of catastrophes by saying, "All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds."

Rogge’s analysis flies in the face of widely reported concerns about sponsorship problems for the London 2012 Summer Games, Olympic Village financing issues for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games and problems for the Sochi 2014 Winter Games related to the massive reduction in Russia’s financial fortunes caused by the drop in oil prices. Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin has committed $12 billion for development related to the Sochi Games.

"I have received assurances from Vancouver, London and Sochi that their finances are secure," Rogge said Friday, after addressing the general assembly of the European Olympic Committees.

"The candidate cities for 2016 are saying the same thing. We are not concerned about financing for the Games of 2014 and 2016."

Rogge’s primary reaction to the crisis was to insist there be no enlargement of the Summer Olympics in terms of sports, sports events and numbers of athletes and coaches.

The IOC has capped the Summer Games at 28 sports and 10,500 athletes. There are only 26 sports on the program for London, but two could be added for 2016 and beyond at the 2009 IOC annual meeting.

"There is an underground swell of people saying, 'Why stop at 28 sports? Why not 30? Why not 32?'" Rogge said.

"In an economic boom, if there are resources that can be committed, it’s okay to grow and have bigger Games. It is not a wise thing to do in a period of credit crunch."

Gilbert Felli, the IOC executive director for the Olympic Games, said that since the Beijing Games, international sports federations have asked for the addition of 29 new events to sports already on the program. There were 302 events at the 2008 Summer Games.

Rogge had told the assembly that contrary to reports in some media, there is "no danger" for the financing of Sochi.

"We have received very strong reassurances from the government that the funding is committed and is in place," he said.

Rogge also told the assembly the IOC’s own finances are solid as a result of conservative investment that does not include any "toxic or exotic products. We have never invested in sub-prime, and we have spread our assets into seven different banks, and we have kept them as liquid as possible."

The IOC has a net loss of three of its 12 big-bucks global sponsors, most recently Johnson & Johnson. Other dropouts: Kodak, ManuLife and Lenovo -- but Acer immediately replaced Lenovo in the information technology category.

Rogge said the revenues from global sponsorship (the TOP program) in the 2009-12 period would be about $900 million, while the last quadrennium brought in $866 million from the TOP program. He held out limited hope a 10th sponsor would be added and noted three of the current nine already have committed for the 2013-16 period.

Rogge said the greatest negative impact on Olympic sports from the financial crisis likely would be on sponsorships at the grassroots level, including sponsors for sports clubs and national sports federations. He also worried about levels of grassroots funding in countries – unlike the United States – where governments make substantial contributions.

"Ticket sales for competitions might diminish," Rogge said in his address. "Although this is contradicted, and I am glad to say, by the ticket sales for Vancouver that went very well, but this is the Olympic Games.

"Today, governments are bailing out banks with billions of dollars. I do hope this will have no negative repercussions on the funding of sport."

About the author

Philip Hersh grew up in Boston but has lived in Evanston since 1977. He has worked at the Tribune since 1984 and has focused on international sports and the Olympics since 1987. In 2011, the German sports publication, SportIntern, named Hersh among the most influential people in world sports, the 11th time he has earned that annual recognition. He was graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in French and a specialization in early 19th Century French literature. Prior to joining the Tribune, Hersh worked for the Gloucester, Mass., Daily Times, the Baltimore Evening Sun, the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Sun-Times.